Editorial Content

WAPO Goes Down Slippery-Slope

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Article in The Guardian by Marina Dunbar, 3/10/25

Headline:  “Top Washington Post columnist quits after piece critical of Bezos is scrapped”

Subhead:  “Ruth Marcus dissented from paper’s new opinion policy of supporting only ‘personal liberties and free markets’”

“Washington Post associate editor and top political columnist Ruth Marcus is reportedly resigning following the decision by the CEO, Will Lewis, to kill her opinion column critical of the billionaire owner Jeff Bezos’s latest changes to the paper.

“ ‘It is with great sadness that I submit my resignation as columnist and associate editor of the Washington Post,’ Marcus wrote in a letter addressed to Lewis and Bezos and posted on X by a New York Times media reporter.

“Last month, Bezos announced changes to the opinion section that appeared to more closely align the Post with the political right, saying that only columns that supported ‘personal liberties and free markets’ would henceforth be published.”

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/mar/10/washington-post-ruth-marcus-resigns

Washington Post Cracking Up?

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Article in Mediaite by Kathrun Wilkens, 3/3/25

Headline:  “Exclusive: Marty Baron on Jeff Bezos, The Washington Post, and Trump’s Crackdown on the Press”

“A few months after legendary journalist Marty Baron was hired as the top editor of The Washington Post in 2013, billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos bought the paper.

During his eight years leading The Post — a dramatic run that included Donald Trump’s first term in office and ten Pulitzer Prizes for the paper — Baron maintained a good relationship with Bezos and has praised the billionaire for standing up to Trump’s efforts to crack down on coverage in the years since his retirement in 2021.

In Trump’s second term, Baron fears Bezos has abandoned his resolve to maintain the independence and credibility of The Post.

The billionaire made waves last week by announcing a shift in the paper’s editorial policy. In a rare public statement, he declared that The Post’s opinion section would now advocate for “personal liberties and free markets,” and not print opposing viewpoints on those subjects.

https://www.mediaite.com/podcasts/exclusive-marty-baron-on-jeff-bezos-the-washington-post-and-trumps-crackdown-on-the-press/

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Article in The Atlantic by George Packer, 3/1/25

Headline:  “The Washington Post Is Dying a Death of Despair”

“How does a free press in this country die? Probably not the way Americans imagine. It’s unlikely—though not impossible—that heavily armed police are going to raid newspaper offices, confiscate computers, and haul editors and reporters off to jail. Media websites probably won’t go dark under government bans. Pro-regime militias with official backing won’t light a bonfire of anti-regime books and magazines on Pennsylvania Avenue. The demise of independent journalism in the United States will be less spectacular than the notorious examples of other times and places—as much voluntary as coerced, less like a murder than a death of despair.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/03/bezos-restrictions-editorial-independence/681878/?gift=I4LGsilsOekK9WrXBxktmnSsD3Fe4VPgZUp5v32UrZc&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share

 

Extra! Extra! Get Yer News by Algorithm!

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Article in The Guardian by Lois Beckett, 3/3/25

Headline:  “LA Times to display AI-generated political rating on opinion pieces”

Subhead:  “Los Angeles paper’s ‘Insights’ tool comes after months of public debate between opinion staff and billionaire owner”

“Some Los Angeles Times opinion pieces will now be published with an artificial intelligence-generated rating of their political content, and an AI-generated list of alternative political views on that issue, the paper’s biotech billionaire owner announced on Monday.

“The new AI “Insights” feature will only be applied to a range of opinion content in the paper, not its news reporting, according to a public letter announcing the change from Patrick Soon-Shiong, the medical entrepreneur who bought the Los Angeles Times in 2018.

“he AI-generated tool “operates independently” from the paper’s human journalists, and “the AI content is not reviewed by journalists before it is published”, the Los Angeles Times noted in a summary of the new feature.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/03/la-times-ai-opinion-rating

State Media Control?

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Podcast on NPR On he Media, by staff  2/28/25

Headline:  “The New ‘State Media.’ Plus, Podcasters Are Running the FBI.”

“Breaking from a century of tradition, the White House says it will seize control of the press pool covering the president. On this week’s On the Media, the new administration is prioritizing access for an array of far-right influencers and news outlets. . . ”

“Host Brooke Gladstone sits down with Anna Merlan, senior reporter at Mother Jones covering disinformation, technology, and extremism, to discuss the White House’s latest move to control the press pool covering the president. Host Micah Loewinger speaks with Brandy Zadrozny, senior reporter at NBC News covering the internet, to discuss the rise of Dan Bongino, from right wing podcaster to Donald Trump’s new pick for Deputy Director of the FBI, and his history of anti-FBI rhetoric.”

https://www.npr.org/podcasts/452538775/on-the-media

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Article in Mother Jones by Anna Merlan, 2/25/25

Headline:  “Meet the New State Media”

Subhead:  “How the second Trump administration grants access and status to conspiracy theorists, propagandists, and far-right influencers.”

“. . . From the moment Trump returned to office, his second administration has prioritized giving access and status to an array of far-right influencers and news outlets, including figures with checkered pasts and thin or nonexistent journalistic credentials. In doing so, the administration has created a swell of flattering media coverage, a gauzy bubble around its every decision, no matter how destructive or incoherent. This new state media displays unquestioning loyalty, and its propaganda pipeline is speedier than ever, ensuring that every executive order or new move by the Department of Government Efficiency is greeted with rapturous pseudo-reporting the moment it’s announced.

As part of this new order, the White House press briefing room is now chock-full of conservative podcasters, influencers, and representatives of right-wing media outlets. Nine days after Trump reassumed office, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt took to the podium for her first briefing to announce that the White House would encourage what she called ‘new media voices’ to apply for press passes, including ‘independent journalists, podcasters, social media influencers, and content creators.’

“ ‘Starting today,’ she added, ‘this seat in the front of the room, which is usually occupied by the press secretary staff, will be called the “new media” seat. . .’

“This new crop of people who have been given extremely good access are not journalists.

“ ‘For the most part, this new crop of people who have been given extremely good access are not journalists in the traditional sense ‘ says Margaret Sullivan, executive director of the Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security at Columbia University and a former public editor for the New York Times.

“ ‘They’re closer to propagandists than journalists,’ Sullivan adds. ‘I don’t know if you could call it ‘coverage. It’s positive exposure for the Trump administration. They’ll be part of a cheering squad.’ ”

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/02/donald-trump-press-room-conservative-media/

 

New Muzzle for the Media?

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Article in The Guardian by Anna Betts, 2/28/25

Headline:  “Ex-Washington Post editor Marty Baron rebukes Bezos: ‘betrayal of free expression’ “

Subhead:  “Lauded former editor ‘appalled’ by billionaire newspaper owner’s overhaul of opinion section to narrow focus”

“Marty Baron, a highly regarded former editor of the Washington Post, has said that Jeff Bezos’s announcement that the newspaper’s opinion section would narrow its editorial focus was a “betrayal of the very idea of free expression” that had left him ‘appalled’.

“In an interview with The Guardian, Baron also said: .’I don’t think that [Bezos] wants an editorial page that’s regularly going after Donald Trump.’

“On Wednesday, the billionaire newspaper owner and Amazon founder sent an email to Post staffers announcing that the newspaper’s editorial section would shift its editorial focus and that only opinions that support and defend “personal liberties” and “free markets” would be welcome, and other viewpoints ‘will be left to be published by others’.

“Bezos’s announcement was met with criticism and resulted in the departure of the newspaper’s opinions editor, David Shipley. Baron, who was executive editor of the Washington Post from 2012 until 2021 and is one of the most esteemed figures in American journalism, blasted Bezos’s decision.

“There’s been a long tradition at the Post of having a variety of opinions on the opinion pages and that’s part of its heritage,” Baron said. ‘Bezos supported that since he acquired the paper, he advocated for that internally, but his most recent decision represents a real betrayal of the heritage of the Post and a betrayal of the very idea of free expression.’ ”

“Baron said that news organizations including the Post have traditionally honored the principle of free expression by allowing a wide variety of views on the opinion pages, but that Bezos’s decision on Wednesday ‘does exactly the opposite’ and ‘dishonors free expression, which is the most fundamental personal liberty of American citizens’ ”.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/feb/28/marty-baron-jeff-bezos-washington-post

 

Media Missing Numbers?

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Article in Common Dreams by Ralph Nader, 2/24/25

Headline:  “An Indifferent Media Is Failing to Report the 400,000 Dead in Gaza”

Subhead:  “Only the Palestinians, who are not allowed to live, don’t get the respect of having their deaths accurately estimated”

“Enough already of the media’s lazy indifference to the vast undercount of the Palestinian death toll from Netanyahu’s genocidal daily bombing and shelling of Gaza’s defenseless civilian population. I’m referring to all the media – the corporate media, the public media, and the independent media. They all stick with the Hamas Ministry of Health’s (MOH) count of named victims whose corpses have been identified by hospitals and mortuaries. For months there have been no operating hospitals and mortuaries to send their grisly data to the Health Ministry.

“The official Hamas count that all sides like to cite is now over 48,000 deaths. As American doctors back from Gaza before the Rafah closing last year said—just about everybody surviving in Gaza is sick, injured, or dying. They put the death estimate almost a year ago at a minimum of 95,000, not counting tens of thousands of families buried under the rubble when Israeli F-16s blew up entire apartment buildings. . . ”

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/real-death-toll-gaza

Former Chairs of FCC Speak

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Article in Status News by Oliver Darcy, 2/19/25

Headline:  “Carr Jacked”

Subhead:  “Former FCC chairs, Republican and Democrat alike, are sounding the alarm over Brendan Carr’s crusade against media companies. In a statement to Status, Carr responded with a GIF—and a tirade.”

“Over the weekend, Tom Wheeler, the former Federal Communications Commission chair under Barack Obama, traveled to his local theater to finally see ‘Wicked.’ The Academy Award-nominated film, a Comcast production, features Marissa Bode, an actor who uses a wheelchair, as Nessarose—a casting choice that underscores the company’s commitment to authentic representation.

Afterward, Wheeler praised NBCUniversal’s decision, telling me, ‘Someone is making an inclusive effort, and that is important.’ But then, his tone shifted. He was reluctant to criticize a successor, he admitted, but he felt compelled to speak out after Brendan Carr, the current Donald Trump-appointed FCC commissioner, announced an investigation into Comcast over its D.E.I. initiatives—the very framework that may have helped bring Bode’s casting to life.

” ‘The fact that they’re saying that because you have a corporate philosophy of inclusion, I will launch an investigation that attacks the fact that your website states this is a “core value of our business”—maybe that was my breaking point,’ Wheeler told me.

Wheeler is part of a growing group of former FCC chairs who have decided that they have a responsibility to speak out…

https://www.status.news/p/brendan-carr-fcc-chairs-criticism

 

 

L.A. Times Anxiety

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Article in Status News by Oliver Darcy, 2/11/25

Headline:  “Soon-Shiong’s La-La Land”

Subhead:  “Billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong is building out a new media venture that has had conversations about partnering with right-wing extremist Candace Owens, Status has learned.”

“Inside the Los Angeles Times, anxiety is running high as demoralized staffers worry about buyouts and the looming threat of layoffs — all while cringing as red-pilled owner Patrick Soon-Shiong embodies the personality of a MAGA clown on social media. But while Soon-Shiong’s attention in the immediate wake of the election was focused on remaking the Times, lately it has been somewhere else entirely. While forcing cost cuts at the newspaper he once promised to breathe new life into, the pharmaceutical billionaire, I’m told, has been directing his focus — and his resources — toward a new media venture.

“Indeed, I’m told that Soon-Shiong has been working over the last few weeks in concert with Republican consultant Eric Beach on building out a new entity that will prominently feature digital-first personalities, many of whom will appeal to the MAGA base”

https://www.status.news/p/patrick-soon-shiong-lat-next

 

Anti-Musk Ads Not Allowed?

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Article in The Hill by Alexaner Bolton, 2/17/25

Headline:  “Washington Post backs out of ‘Fire Elon Musk’ ad order”

“The Washington Post this week backed out of a ‘Fire Elon Musk’ advertising order that was to run as a wrap on some of its Tuesday editions, according to the advocacy group Common Cause.

“The group said it signed a $115,000 agreement with the Post to run the ad that would have covered the front and back page of the Tuesday paper, as well as a full-page ad with the same theme inside the paper. It said it planned to purchase the ad in collaboration with the Southern Poverty Law Center Action Fund.”

https://thehill.com/media/5148497-washington-post-backs-out-of-fire-elon-musk-ad-order/

Reporting Exposes Tesla State Dept. Proposal?

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Artocle in MSNBC by Erik De La Garza, 2/12/25

Headline:  ” ‘Paperweights’: Rachel Maddow unleashes mockery on $400M award for ‘armored Teslas’ “

“Reports that the State Department appears poised to award a $400 million contract to none other than President Donald Trump’s top campaign donor Elon Musk was met with unabashed mockery by an exasperated Rachel Maddow.

“The MSNBC host during her show’s opening monologue Wednesday delivered a scornful rebuke of Musk’s Tesla Motors as she launched into a deep criticism of the development involving spending taxpayer funds to buy armored Teslas – but not without having a little fun at the tech billionaire’s expense.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/paperweights-rachel-maddow-unleashes-mockery-on-400m-award-for-armored-teslas/ar-AA1yWtVc